Why artificial intelligence is key in Google's battle with Amazon

John Giannandrea’s appointment as Google’s search chief is a tactical move in the new search wars. Outgoing SVP for search Amit Singhal did a phenomenal job of seeing off the challenge from Microsoft, Yahoo and countless others who have been consigned to the history books, but the world’s biggest search engine knows the next war is not one of preference (see Scroogled – it’s about requirement.) Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said: “Many people think our main competition is Bing or Yahoo. But, really, our biggest search competitor is Amazon.” If Amazon’s search results represent a bigger and better inventory of products – and a large number of users think they do – Google knows it will have to ensure it is providing the best possible information in every…